


Of the Fair Places

by paradox_n_bedrock



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Autistic Mary Wardwell, F/F, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Lesbian Character, Memory Loss, Religious Content, Sexual Repression, this is bordering on maudlin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22517653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradox_n_bedrock/pseuds/paradox_n_bedrock
Summary: Mary reached out for the spine of the book with shaking fingers, as though it were a snake she had to move from her garden.--Mary isn't quite as alone as she thinks. Or, Lilith leaves Mary an anthology of lesbian poetry.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 40





	Of the Fair Places

**Author's Note:**

> Blame a conversation with Aviariies and its-a-goode-day where we were like “what. what if Lilith is just dropping off that recommended reading about hell? but she’s trying to be helpful, really.” And then it escalated. Poem excerpts are from "Lilith of the Wildwood, of the Fair Places" by Susan Sherman.

Mary reached out for the spine of the book with shaking fingers, as though it were a snake she had to move from her garden.

She'd been finding books she had no memory of buying. It was that first night in March she came home to Dante's _Divine Comedy_ on her bedside table. A few days later it was _Paradise Lost_ in the pile on her coffee table. It was hardly a surprise to find new books, when she had no memory of so much else. They weren't to her usual taste, but somehow, the contents became a comfort, in those nights when she woke crying. Often now, she would sink herself into familiar imagery of fire and cold and pain, until she drifted back off on the sofa.

She had stopped finding them, since she'd reorganized her bookcase, using it as an excuse to take inventory. It had spilled over into a frantic exercise in spring cleaning that had left her more shaken than before. She could only hope it was her own blood staining the bathroom grout. She had so much fear that it wasn't.

Her mind skittered away from any explanation at all for the dolls and strange herbs, or the disturbing collection of hair and nail she had tossed out, porcelain containers included.

But here was another one, tucked into the right-hand corner of her bookcase. A slim volume, brand new, and not one that she would ever bring home. The title told her it was something from the store shelves that she would hurry by, eyes averted, tamping down the temptation in her heart.

She pulled the book out, cradling it delicately, as it seemed both a blessing and damnation. It was a poetry anthology and as she fanned through, she saw phrases that made her blush and burn, but then it opened easily to a particular page and she was caught, instantly and irrevocably drawn in by the words in front of her.

_And Lilith left Adam and went to seek her own place  
And the gates were closed behind her and her name  
was stricken from the book of life.  
_

_And how does one begin again  
_ (Each time, each poem, each line, word, syllable  
Each motion of the arms, the legs,  
a new beginning)

women women surround me  
images of women their faces  
I who for years pretended them away  
pretended away their names their faces  
myself what I am pretended it away

She thought of her roommate at university, her strong shoulders and calloused hands. The desperate prayers of repentance that had spilled her lips until they poisoned the air.

She thought of the bounce of silky red waves as she sat across the desk from a parent at conferences. Sitting on her own hands because she wanted to touch them.

Reaching the end, she realized she was on the floor, almost curled over the book, unable to catch her breath. She felt as though her anguish would burst out of her skin and suddenly her sweater was too tight, too itchy. She ripped off the cardigan, tossing it next to her with a whine.

She traced the verses that echoed in her mind in the same manner as Milton’s depiction of Eve’s fall.

to be an outcast an outlaw  
to stand apart from the law the words  
of the law  
outlaw  
outcast

cast out cast out by her own will  
refusing anything but her own place  
a place apart from any other  
her own

I do not have to read her legend in the ancient books  
I do not have to read their lies  
She is here inside me  
I reach to touch her  
my body my breath my life

Clutching the cross around her neck tightly, she pulled until the chain dug into the back of her neck. Shame crawled up her throat. Maybe this was why she was suffering, this was why she was damned, why visions of it haunted her nightly. She felt raw and exposed, but for the first time connected to the version of her that had chosen this text.

She truly was an outcast, she always had been, never wanting to fill the place dictated for her by God or her father. She was reminded that there were people out there, seemingly even some part of herself who didn’t think she was wrong for it.

Moving to the sofa on weak legs, she sat. She rocked as she read the pages again, hungrily, failing to flip a light on as if the dim room would hide her sins.

To fear you is to fear myself  
To hate you is to hate myself  
To desire you is to desire myself  
To love you is to love myself

_Lilith of the Wildwood_  
_Lilith of the Fair Places_


End file.
